


Regret

by ButterflyGhost



Category: due South
Genre: Coming of Age, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-25 20:24:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14386431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ButterflyGhost/pseuds/ButterflyGhost
Summary: Martha questions her child rearing skills.





	Regret

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [PhoenixWytch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixWytch/pseuds/PhoenixWytch) in the [DS_C6D_Prompt_Meme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/DS_C6D_Prompt_Meme) collection. 



> Written quickly on my phone during work break. Sorry for any typoes. All hail Google docs.

Martha watched Benton, outside unleashing his anger on the wood. The thud-thwack of the axe as he split the logs echoed through the brittle air. Soon he would be sweating beneath his layers and have to come in. Maybe they would have calmed down by then. Maybe she could find the words to let him know....

 

 _Oh, don’t be foolish Martha. There are no words for this._ She clenched her knuckles on the window sill. She so rarely argued with the boy. And he so rarely argued back.

 

Benton was going to Depot and it was Martha's fault. Maybe it was not too late to put her foot down; maybe she could still prevent him. She had the authority to do so, after all - at least, she used to - but she had always promised herself that when Benton came of age she would let him make his own choices. Certainly he was of age now, and certainly he had made a noble choice but - She blinked sharply.

 

“He could do so much,” she told George. “He has so many more options than his father did, why does he have to...?” She shook her head. George grunted, then offered a rare opinion.

 

“The boy’s a man now. He could do far worse.”

 

 _Yes,_ Martha thought, _but he was meant to go further._ He was meant to go to university - a PhD in Music, Comparative Linguistics or Philosophy, Medical School even. Of all the students she had ever taught he had been by far and away the most able, the most effortlessly well rounded. Benton could have done _anything_. He excelled in everything. How could he throw away that intellect on police work? She had seen what it cost Bob, and her son, God love him, while bright, was not in Benton’s league.

 

Besides, Benton would hate it. His idealistic nature would run against the brick wall of the RCMP with all of its ingrained privilege and prejudice, and he would never be comfortable there. He would forever now be mistrusted by the Inuit, forever now an outsider. And, oh, she knew he would not founder and she knew he would not complain. He would do his job with diligence and determination, be as good at it as he was at everything else, but he would suffer. Bob had suffered. Yes, Benton’s father had eventually found his place on the edge of the world, but even here bureaucracy and hierarchy hampered true justice at every turn.

 

How could you tell that to a boy though, even a boy who was a man? And this boy was so naïve, so eager to do the right thing and so desperate for his father's approval.  

 

Martha let out a sad gust of air. Somehow she had missed the chance to guide Benton onto right paths. It would be a misuse of her position as teacher and matriarch to bully him out of his choice and yet....

 

Maybe she was wrong. Maybe all would yet be well. Maybe -

 

“We did the wrong thing, George,” she said, glancing at her husband for understanding. “We should have praised him more.”

 

“Praised him?” George furrowed his brow and sucked on his pipe, coaxing a little red glow in the bowl before exhaling smoke. He was uncharacteristically vocal today, in the face of this catastrophe. He was a man though and didn't see it for what it was. “What does a boy need praise for? He should know himself when he does well. And you were the one who said we should discourage pride.”

 

And yes, that had indeed been her notion, originally, when she really understood how exceptional Benton was. He was a true polymath, not just intellectually but physically. Now she wished she had been less stern in her raising of the boy. She had understood his intellectual, but not his emotional landscape. Emotions were always alien territory to her. She should have seen that vanity was never going to be Benton’s vice. “We should have praised him,” she repeated, voice low. “Let him know we valued him for more than being family.”

 

“Is family not enough?”

 

 _No,_ she thought. _He is more than the continuation of our dNA._

 

Martha turned from the window and put a pan of snow on the stove. She could not say that to George. She did not want more bad, sad feeling. Today had been hard enough. Instead she shook her head. “I think...” She trailed off.

 

“What, Martha?” George came behind her and rested a gentle hand on her shoulder. She smiled at his constant patience and presence, the warm smell of his tobacco. Some things remained steady and the same. George would never change. Closing her eyes she leaned into him and found the courage to let out the words.

  
“We did the wrong thing. _I_ did the wrong thing. I should have let him know how much I value him, how much I...” She stopped. That word had always been beyond her. Instead she swallowed against the lump in her throat and admitted another, smaller truth. “And now I have to let him go."


End file.
